Three essays on entrepreneurship and alternative economic development policies

Abstract

The last two decades marked a turning point for entrepreneurship policy, highlighting the crucial role of public policy in generating the conditions that encourage business creation and expansion. As more states design and implement entrepreneurship policies of their own, understanding how these policies can support and harness the full potential of entrepreneurship becomes more critical. This dissertation comprises three studies on entrepreneurship and alternative economic development policies. The first essay examines the effect of rurality on early-stage necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship among women and men in America from three rural-urban typology perspectives. The second essay uses the Resource-Based View of the firm in the context of neoclassical economics and the concept of additionality to determine the effect of public sources of start-up capital on entrepreneurial performance at the business and state levels. The third essay applies a quasi-market framework for development competition to report on the effects of an entrepreneurship policy implemented in 2004 in the state of Kansas as part of the Kansas Economic Growth Act.